And A Little Bit Foxy

The front counter of the little booth was lined with cobweb doilies on which sat the usual diabetic-coma-inducing pyramids of doughnuts and pastries. And something new. Something awful.

“What is that?” he demanded, transferring his glare from the case to the Goth girl standing behind it.

She looked like an extra from Beetlejuice, all wild black hair and dead white makeup except for raccoon-dark circles around her eyes. But her expression indicated that he was the one being scary. Her gaze dropped to the item in question, which was wedged between a tower of zombie cake pops and a bunch of “fruit cups” laced with custard and cream.

“M-muffin?” she asked, as if she wasn’t sure.

He couldn’t blame her. The monstrosity spilling over the edge of a shiny gold baking cup was big as a couple of clenched fists, a bloated alien of a sweet menacing the other nearby treats. And then he noticed the little heart-shaped sticker that someone—some fiend—had attached to the front of the foil.

“Heart healthy?” he asked, outraged.

↳ Karen Chance - Shadowland

it’s also why there was a revival of the unattributed and at the time probably rather out of fashion mucedorus at the globe in 1610 (the same year as the winter’s tale), and why ben jonson wrote a chariot pulled by bears into his court masque oberon, performed on new year’s day of 1611.

we think the answer is polar bears.

no, seriously!  in late 1609 the explorer jonas poole captured two polar bear cubs in greenland and brought them home to england, where they were purchased by the beargarden, the go-to place in elizabethan london for bear-baiting and other ‘animal sports.’  it was at the time run by edward alleyn (yes, the actor) and his father-in-law philip henslowe (him of the admiral’s men and that diary we are all so very grateful for), and would have been very close, if not next to, the globe theatre.

of course, polar bear cubs are too little and adorable for baiting, even to the bloodthirsty tudor audience, aren’t they?  so, what to do with the little bundles of fur until they’re too big to be harmless?  well, if there’s anything we know about the playwrights and theatre professionals of the time, it’s that they knew how to make money and draw in audiences.  and the spectacle of a too-small-to-be-dangerous-yet-but-still-real-live-and-totally-WHITE-bear?  what good entertainment businessman is going to turn down that opportunity? 

Ewan McGregor on getting older: 

“I don’t feel it – you never do. I still want to kick around on BMX bikes! I have to ask my wife: ‘Do I look like a cock, or is this all right, the way I’m dressed?’ Because you don’t want to be ‘that guy’, but you also don’t want to listen to that voice either. I want to wear skinny jeans when I’m in my 70s. Why not? Who cares?”

i can recognize white people as a whole have systemically oppressed POC in america, which is where i live 

most people when they make white people jokes only mean the shitty white people and i am not a shitty white person 

Poor Satan…

A lot of analyses propose that the overwhelming predominance of male/male ships over female/female and female/male ships in fandom reflects an unhealthy fetishisation of male homosexuality and a deep-seated self-hatred on the part of women in fandom. While it’s true that many fandoms certainly have issues gender-wise, that sort of analysis willfully overlooks a rather more obvious culprit.

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that we have a hypothetical media franchise with twelve recurring speaking roles, nine of which are male and three of which are female.

(Note that this is actually a bit better than average representaton-wise - female representation in popular media franchises is typicaly well below the 25% contemplated here.)

Assuming that any character can be shipped with any other without regard for age, gender, social position or prior relationship - and for simplicity excluding cloning, time travel and other “selfcest”-enabling scenarios - this yields the following (non-polyamorous) possibilities:

Possible F/F ships: 3 Possible F/M ships: 27 Possible M/M ships: 36

TOTAL POSSIBLE SHIPS: 66

Thus, assuming - again, for the sake of simplicity - that every possible ship is about equally likely to appeal to any given fan, we’d reasonably expect about (36/66) = 55% of all shipping-related media to feature M/M pairings. No particular prejudice in favour of male characters and/or against female characters is necessary for us to get there.

This is certainly one large factor in the amount of M/M slash out there, and the first reason that occurred to me when I first got into fandom (I don’t think it’s the sole reason, but I think it’s a bigger one than some people in the Why So Much Slash debate give our credit for). And nice point about adding female OCs.

I’m gonna start by revealing the well-kept secret that I live in Ohio… in case all the buckeye references flew by you. And Ohio… is obsessed with space travel. I mean- it makes sense. We’ve got a couple astronauts in our history, there’s the National Aeronautics and Space Museum in Dayton, and on those quiet summer nights, where the sky is clear and the stars are twinkling in the distance, it is hard to not look up at the darkness and wonder if there is intelligent life out there. (Not here.)

Anyhow, all the fourth graders have a big space-related project around this time of year and this means that we, as craft retailers, have to be problem solvers. The number one problem is ‘oh gods, please tell me that you’re going to put a primer down on that styrofoam before you spray paint it.’

Because- you guessed it- everyone is making a damn solar system model. 

That is to say… their parents are making the solar system model. 

I was just finishing up explaining the use of a styrofoam primer and which spray paints are safe to use with styro to the mother of one ten-year-old when the mother of another ten-year-old rounds the corner looking desperate. 

“Is this a good paint for cardboard?”

It’s not. So I round her back to where her son and daughter are waiting and explain them what will work. She needs green, and there are three different kinds of greens. The mom holds them up and has her daughter choose. 

“Which one do you want for your face?”

I freeze because putting acrylic on your skin is a great way to get a rash. “Hold on, you’re not putting this on your skin, are you?”

“No, gosh no. We’re painting a box and putting the box on her head.”

…

Okay, I’m curious. “Can you explain what you’re making?”

The daughter chimes in. “We have to do a project for school and I’m gonna dress up like a alien!”

Instantly, I love this child. Not just because she considers dressing up as an alien to be an acceptable school project, but because she’s not leaving it to her mom to do all the work. 

So we talk for a minute about project stuff and she tells me that her brother is going to be the first man on Mars. Her brother is five. Her brother concurs- he is going to be the first man on Mars. Their mom tells me about the Neil Armstrong museum nearby. Like… this is a family of people excited about the future of space travel.

“Did you hear about those new planets,” I asked. 

The little girl starts jumping up and down. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

Mom: “Can you remember what they said about the new planets?”

“They said…. they said that they can… uhhh… sustain life! There might be aliens!”

Mom: “Now, they said they can sustain life, but I think they also said that it isn’t very advanced life.”

The little girl looks off into space- contemplating this new information. She is formulating a very important thought. 

We get to see Belle’s signature dress!

There’s nothing else like it! That design, the texture, the way it puffs out but manages to be elegant and regal!

Look at these cosplays!

Those are just cosplays!

Disney’s pouring 160 million dollars into this remake!

So tell me, Mickey, how did you and the gang manage to recreate the signature yellow dress?